NASA TV to cover launch of Tim Peake KG5BVI

The next three crew members bound for the International Space Station are set to launch on Tuesday, December 15. NASA Television will provide full coverage of the launch beginning at 10:00 UT.

UK astronaut Tim Peake KG5BVI, along with Yuri Malenchenko RK3DUP and Tim Kopra KE5UDN, will launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 11:03 UT (5:03 p.m. Baikonur time) for a six-month stay on the orbital complex.

Principia Mission Patch

The three will travel in a Soyuz spacecraft, rendezvous with the space station and dock to the Rassvet module at 17:24 UT NASA TV coverage of docking will begin at 16:45 UT.

The hatches between the Soyuz and space station will be opened at about 19:25 UT, and the newly arrived crew members will be greeted by Expedition 46 Commander Scott Kelly of NASA and Flight Engineers Sergey Volkov RU3DIS and Mikhail Kornienko RN3BF of Roscosmos. NASA TV coverage of the hatch opening will begin at 19:00 UT.

Kelly and Kornienko will return in March 2016 with Volkov after spending a year on the station collecting valuable biomedical data that will improve our understanding of the effects of long duration space travel and aid in NASA’s journey to Mars.

Together, the Expedition 46 crew members will continue the several hundred experiments in biology, biotechnology, physical science and Earth science currently underway and scheduled to take place aboard humanity’s only orbiting laboratory.